


absentee

by Darkfromday



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Aloy Has A Bad Day, Aloy is a badass who misses her dad, Families of Choice, Ficlet, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, That's it. That's the fic., and Elida slips in too, and Vanasha cashed in some of her 'cool points' to cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25995214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkfromday/pseuds/Darkfromday
Summary: Sun has overcome Eclipse. The world is Aloy's to explore.(It still feels wrong without Rost to explore it at her side.)
Relationships: Aloy & Elida (Horizon: Zero Dawn), Aloy & Rost (Horizon: Zero Dawn), Aloy & Vanasha (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27





	absentee

**Author's Note:**

> **me, January/February 2020:** wow, just finished HZD and it was an _excellent_ game; I'm so going to write a fic for it—
> 
> **the global pandemic:**
> 
> **me:** oh hey where the _hell_ did you come from

Aloy's unsolicited breakfast is dirt and dust again, meaning Meridian has had a morning sandstorm for the third day running.

 _Truly a cause for celebration_ , she thinks (hah) dryly.

HADES fell a week before and the city is still raucous in its actual celebrations: parties, ceremonies, hours and hours of chatter and drinking and merriment. Words on the wind from her open window woke her several times last night, and several nights before. Sounds outside in the predawn indicate that today will be more of the same. At least _some_ people don't seem to be waking up with sanded tongues and clouded thoughts.

It doesn't matter. It's going to be a bad day; the signs are clear enough.

She rises and bathes and dresses anyway, deciding to make the best of it.

Aloy has been staying in Olin's old house although she has a standing invitation to occupy guest quarters in the palace. On days like this, she's glad she's politely declined each time Avad tentatively mentioned them. It will be easier to blend in with the crowds and leave Meridian behind.

It doesn't take long at all to sling her bow and arrow over her back and collect the rest of her weapons: though a stranger ransacking the place wouldn't have a clue where to find her things, Aloy would have no trouble even if she were set loose blindfolded in here. Hopping down from the second floor, she pushes open the front door and heads for the main gates with breakfast half on her mind.

 _I'll grab something quick_.

There's some boar meat skewers at the nearest stall, still steaming from the fire. The seller is bogged down by other hungry customers, and so barely gives Aloy a second glance when she slips the necessary shards into his hands—and a good thing too, since it keeps everyone else from recognizing her and making a fuss. Somehow she has become more famous in this city after halting three days of burning homes and mass killings than she became over several dedicated _months_ of helping Carja residents here and there with their troubles.

It reminds her of the Nora—eighteen years of silence and hostility towards her, only to now bow and scrape and call her _Anointed_. All because a door she was _designed_ to open validated her genetic code. But all that time before she was less than dirt to them. Stuck in the high peaks above Nora lands, with no one but Rost to keep her company—

Aloy shakes her head hard. _Not here_ , she thinks, as heat prickles at the corners of her face. _Not now_.

She hurries on.

"How open are you to sharing?"

The voice—low, cultured, playful—comes just as she crosses the main gates, nearly free of the city proper. Normally the owner makes her smile, but Aloy just isn't in the mood to be caught today.

Still, she makes her own tone light in return. "Pretty open, if you make it quick."

"Far be it from me to slow down Meridian's heroine."

Vanasha is leaning against a pillar when Aloy turns around. She's back in her deep purple robe, the same one which had (quietly) dazzled Aloy's eyes when first they met in Shadow Carja territory; though her posture is relaxed, there's a hint of worry easily spotted in her dark brown eyes.

"Don't tell me you received another distress signal," she says—still light, purposely casual.

Aloy tosses her one of the meat skewers. "Only in my own head," she remarks—then ( _shit_ ) hates herself for the admission. They'll never let her leave if they think she's troubled.

Sure enough, Vanasha's easy smile disappears and she advances a step. "Everything okay, Aloy?"

"Fine, fine. Just taking a walk. I'm not really built for city life."

"What _would_ you say you're built for, little huntress?"

The lilting tone is unmistakable—and with months of experience actually _speaking_ with other people, Aloy knows now what Vanasha is saying _and_ not saying. It is comforting that her friend still treats her normally, still flirts with her and speaks passionately about protecting the people that matter to her... but she doesn't have the spirit for this banter now. Her mind is a steady drumbeat, unceasingly chanting _go, go, go_.

"I'm built for just that: the hunt," she replies. She doesn't say _I'm built to live alone. Built to be an outcast._ Instead she retreats the same amount of steps that the other woman advanced. "I really should go, Vanasha."

"Very well, don't let me keep you." Vanasha looks her over; apparently she can live with whatever she sees, because she nods and doesn't step forward again. "...But I do hope you'll have time later for that tea you promised me."

"Consider it done."

"Wonderful. Off you go then—may the Sun light your way."

The last obstacle to her departure is gone. Aloy turns and disappears into the bustling crowd—

into the menacing cliffs—

into the wilderness.

Her first destination is Brightmarket.

It's not quite as far as she wants to go (if she followed her feelings, Aloy might black out and find herself lost in the Forbidden West) but it will suffice for a day's trip. A chance to get away from people and wrestle with her demons. A chance to brush up on her hunting, that it might somewhat fill the gnawing ache ever-present in her heart.

Aloy walks most of the way, content to find a steed once she's nearly to her mark. Walking (or crawling) through the grass in search of Machines and prey takes her back in time—in her mind her reddish braids become smaller and more knotted, her cheeks grow fuller and her voice pitches higher. She is creeping along in the tall grass in the lands outside the Embrace, with Rost beside her signaling for quiet. If she's young she hushes instantly, desperate to impress him—if she's a bit older, it takes a stronger hand gesture for her to subside. But regardless he is giving her that same stern look he used to have, when Aloy put too much faith in the little metal triangle at her ear and not enough in the hunting strategies passed down over decades.

Her eyes sting.

_Oh, Rost._

She can hardly see, but she doesn't need much besides muscle memory to nock an arrow and point it at a flicker of movement in the grass ahead. The familiar moves clear her eyes and help her calm down. Then— _back to the hunt_. Her foot twitches in the dirt. The shape startles, she fires— _fwip_ , a direct hit. The prize she finds when she hurries over is a nice fat rabbit, twice the size of any she ever caught as a child.

Rost is loud and clear in her head, like he'd be if he were really here. _Good. But I know you can do better._

 _I can_ , Aloy thinks. _And_ _I will. There's bigger game to hunt out here._

On she walks, with the sun at her back. Sometimes she has to duck down further into the tall grass or hastily climb a tree when she spots a Watcher, darting this way and that and turning in every direction to search for hostiles. But once she determines that there's no caravan of more dangerous Shell-Walkers or other Machines behind it, it takes only a few seconds to shoot each one in the eye and loot it for scraps. With each kill she remembers the little girl she once was, tense as a bowstring and terrified of even the smallest Machines.

She is worlds away from being that little girl now, and not sure she would have sacrificed the same things to be where (who) she is now.

Next she tangles with a Scrapper she took by surprise. Sylens' spear is an improvement on her old one so Aloy has kept it close; now it slices open the hostile Machine's belly with dreamlike ease. She comes away with only a few bleeding scratches on her arm where Carja armor doesn't cover, and thinks, _look at that, Rost. Look what I can do. I see the Unseen. I tame the Machines. I'm unstoppable._

Rost would be prouder of her strides with the Nora, though. Proud of her for (in his eyes) having people to call her own, having the respect and acknowledgment she had long been denied.

_But I don't need them._

She had worked for twelve years to be admitted into the tribe, only to realize at the cusp of victory that even becoming Nora to find answers to her origin would be unsatisfactory at best. That if there had been a way to find where and from whom she came that didn't require her to play nice with them, she would have followed that path in a heartbeat. And now with Rost gone from the world (not just exiled from her sphere), kinship with his people feels like a rotten consolation prize.

_What are they, compared to him?_

Rost would say _everything_. _The tribe is everything._ Even permanently exiled from their space, he held nothing but reverence for the Nora and what they stood for. He would rap her forehead sharply and say, _Quit whinging about what was. Set your arrow towards what you will become._

Rost was killed, and Aloy set her arrow and watched it fly far forward. She became a Seeker, a raider, a Tamer, a warrior, a hero. A stopgap against the ultimate evil, an answer to worldwide devastation and deletion. A young woman with the ear of kings and chiefs, and a connection to the Old Ones.

For others, she became everything. For herself, she became not very much at all.

Naught but a little girl in a woman's clothes, wandering adrift without her father.

Much has changed, but Aloy doesn't need to reach far to close her hands around the same flames of anger and grief that have burned her inside out since the day Helis dropped his shadow over her Proving.

Naturally it starts raining the closer she gets to her first destination.

Her first instinct is to run—to outrun the tower, make it to town. But.

_What's the point?_

It _all_ seems pointless, all of a sudden. Hurrying out of town. Hurrying _to_ another town. Hurrying anywhere, when the danger is past and the fight-or-flight instincts have long since settled. The Eclipse have been defeated—their monstrous Machines are burning and rusting in piles outside Meridian, and at the bottom of the Spire. The murderers are done for and everyone (else) can go back to their normal lives. Those Carja and Nora and Oseram and Banuk who _didn't_ lose their families and friends and lovers can pick up where they left off.

Aloy stands still in the clearing and allows herself to be drenched. Her auburn braids quickly grow heavier with rainwater and droop as fast as her mood. Her armor gets heavier too, and she ignores it all—does nothing except, eventually, lie down in the grass and stare up at the stormy gray sky far above.

"There's nothing left to do," she says softly.

She's found Elisabet's final resting place. She's helped all the people she can stand to help for the time being. She's saved the world. She's even carved out a bit of time here and there to go back to the place she and Rost once called home—to sit at his grave a while, and tell him of her travels. It isn't as good as sharing it with a living, breathing person; it never could be.

Nothing happens this time to stop the stinging of her eyes and the flush of her cheeks—no one is around to make Aloy swallow back the tears that blend in with the rain. Nature alone is witness to her long-buried grief. She shivers and breathes shakily and mutes the world around her, for once listening only to her own sorrow.

 _I miss_ _you_.

All things come to an end. Rain is no different.

She stirs when she no longer feels water tapping at her face and arms, light and persistent. The storm has passed and Brightmarket is a few minutes' jog away. It must have just ended; there's no sign of any Machines emerging from their hollows to reclaim their territory. That, and her clothes and weapons and armor are all still damp.

Well. Her first stop is close enough. It is an opportunity to get dry, at least—clean up and stock up.

One foot in front of the other. _Set your arrow forward._ Aloy counts heartbeats and makes it to twenty-seven before she arrives. Tales of her accomplishments have spread here too, and she is treated with more of the same reverence which makes her uncomfortable in Meridian—though at least Elida is kind without seeming false. It is she who offers to dry the majority of Aloy's possessions and give her spare clothes to go to market with.

"You don't have to," she murmurs.

"I know," Elida says, and pushes the Carja silks into Aloy's hands. "Take them anyway. Your clothes will be dry by the time the sun is over the inn."

"Thank you."

Walking around in clothing not made for hunting or combat feels strange. Alien. She feels like a snotty noble, and dislikes it. The silk is too soft against her skin, and the glances she gets while making her way from Lahavis' estate are even softer. For the first time in her life, she keeps her head down and her tongue still as she selects tie ropes and charges for her Ropecaster and Tearblaster. After some deliberation, she trades the merchant to get extra potions for her pouch too. Her mark is not an easy one to topple.

Dithering over shards and ammo takes a surprisingly long time. By the time she's done, the sun is in its promised location; her clothes are dry; and Elida waits for her with all her precious possessions held aloft.

"Thank you, Elida."

"It's no trouble, Aloy. Wherever you're going—be careful, won't you?"

"I'll do my best."

_That might have been a lie_ , she thinks later, down on her belly in the tall grass.

A herd of Chargers always lingers directly west of Brightmarket. Of the few types of Machines she's found that are amenable to serving as steeds, they are the most dangerous. The hardest to tame. It is almost impossible to think of things like being _careful_ when one's goal is to tame something so mercurial.

Aloy is the Machine Tamer, though, and so will not be easily denied.

She crawls closer to one Charger that has split off from the rest: _you will do nicely._ From here on, the dance she does is so familiar she could do it in her sleep: the Machine grazes, Aloy closes in. It stops and snorts; she goes still. It turns a hair to the left, and she moves to accommodate its new line of sight. All to get close enough to heft her spear high and press it to the Charger's crown. It tries to buck, but the fine blue wires have already stretched over its face and down its neck; it is too late. Its old allegiance is gone; it is Aloy's companion now.

Quick as a whip, she hoists herself on its back and says "Yah!" with a tap of her heels against the creature's flanks. The Charger swivels and hurries back the way she had come alone, too fast for its bewildered fellows to follow. Past Brightmarket, past the woods, past the tall grass full of herbs and weeds and Watchers, even past Meridian. Her true destination is southeast of the Spire, where a dangerous thunderstorm has sprung up to threaten the surrounding settlements and traveling hunters. Once she arrives, her true skills as a hunter will be put to the test.

If any of Rost has remained to watch over her, Aloy hopes he pays special attention to how efficiently she takes this Stormbird down.

A raptor screech lets her know she's arrived—and that her foe, circling high above in the gray storm clouds, has seen her.

 _Time to make you proud, Rost_.

"Yah!" she orders again, urging her Charger forward and off to the side, to wait for her in a copse of trees. Worst-case scenario will have her whistle for it if she feels her life is in danger... but even a Charger stands no chance against a Stormbird for long. There's no reason to have her steed destroyed if it's not necessary, and she hopes it won't become so. It's a pain to keep Overriding new allies.

Aloy leaves the snorting Machine with one quick flank-pat and runs forward into the windy clearing, into battle.

She smells ozone immediately and ducks. Lightning arcs toward her from the Stormbird's wings, bright and white and lethal on contact. Aloy rolls forward, draws her Tearblaster and comes up at point-blank range—and fires.

Three of the monster's electrical jet engines are blown off its wings in a concussive blast that makes her ears ring.

The Stormbird screeches—its beak comes down swift and hard in a succession of pecks. Aloy dodges once, twice—but the third time her foe hits its mark, and she gasps in pain as blood runs freely from the new wound on the shoulder of her armor. The Machine's red eyes glint menacingly; now that it has drawn blood, it will not withdraw from the fight until she is dead—or _it_ is.

Aloy knows which future she will allow.

Another twitch predates the bird lunging at her again, but this time she has predicted its trajectory. It goes left and she goes right, twirling and bringing the Tearblaster up again. Between one breath and the next, she looses three more shots—three more blasts of air. Fortunately she aims well and the last of the jet engines flies off into the surrounding grass. Just like that, the Stormbird is grounded and unable to blow her away or lob shocking blasts at her from above.

_But you're still dangerous._

The smell of ozone grows stronger, and Aloy curses and dives for cover behind several rocks. _Just in time—_ two seconds later the center of the Stormbird's chest glows blindingly white, as white as its wings used to be, and it fires more pure lightning from the gun nestled there. The tops of the rocks explode above Aloy's head, covering her hair in fine gray dust. Her shoulder aches from the strain of sudden movement.

The raptor hops closer to her hiding spot, following the trail of blood Aloy has unwillingly left. She's reminded each time its claws gouge into the earth that its legs are in perfect working order and it can still cover a more respectable distance than she can on foot. _I need to keep it still,_ she thinks hurriedly, _so I can finish this._ She's not sure how to accomplish this at first—but then inspiration hits.

_The ropes._

It's the work of a moment to switch from holding the Tearblaster to holding the Ropecaster—one of the first weapons she was ever able to trade for, one of the few she still carries that she was ever able to (briefly) show to Rost. As the Stormbird stalks closer to her hiding place, Aloy forces herself to keep still and wait for the right moment to strike.

_Three._

_Two._

_One._

The Machine screeches, lunging forward over the rocks—and immediately meets several flying ropes. Aloy wasted no time before rushing forward and firing her weapon, and now she watches with satisfaction as the ropes dig into the Stormbird's left leg and right wing and hold tight. The screeches of anger become screams of distress as she secures each rope firmly in the dirt, preventing the bird from escaping. It lashes out at her, but she only has to hop back to be safely out of range of that deadly beak.

Defiance shines in the Stormbird's eyes right as its chest starts to glow white again—but Aloy's own eyes are shining too, even as blood runs over her arm and down her chest.

"This is the end!" she tells it, and draws her trusty bow.

 _Set your arrow forward_ , she remembers as she aims true. The Stormbird never gets a chance to fire directly on her with that lightning. Aloy strikes first, and her arrow pierces and destroys the gun once and for all, sending shockwaves all over the Machine's body. Even as it quivers and shrieks, she carries on detaching or destroying the other weapons it has with ruthless precision: first its Blaze gets removed to serve as a resource for her fire arrows, then its Chillwater canisters are hit and detonated, freezing the Stormbird solid. From then on, its only role is to die cold and still as she finishes it off with several well-placed arrows to the head, only letting up when the red light in its eyes winks out.

Then there's silence in the clearing, as the storm dies down too.

Aloy just stands across from the Stormbird's carcass for a bit, panting. It's easy to keep mostly calm in the heat of battle, but that typically means she needs some time afterward to process. And— _oh, right_ —also heal up. There are some herbs in her pouch but she goes for the potions she bought in Brightmarket instead: one swallow will at least get her back to a town or village so she can sleep the rest of this day off.

There is much to be proud of. This Stormbird was terrorizing several towns that sprang up in the aftermath of the battle with the Eclipse: small settlements full of people who had wished to branch out from Meridian and claim more territory after noticing that the end of the conflict brought an odd calm to many of the less dangerous Machines. Nothing like the calm that had existed before the Derangement, of course, but something humans could live with. No towns had been built close enough to infringe on the bird's territory—or so they thought, before the incessant thunderstorms began.

They were lucky no one had been carried off yet, or killed outright. Now that the Machine is dead, there's one less worry for them. ...Until something new and similarly awful comes to take its place.

 _No need to think like that_.

She can't help it, though. Even moments after a thrilling, near-flawless victory over one of the most dangerous beasts in the known world, Aloy's thoughts are dark as she collects the necessary scraps, components and trophies from her kill. She has hunted so many things by herself out in the wilds that the joy of the hunt itself is almost nonexistent.

Everything is quickly pocketed. The potion is swallowed. Aloy whistles for her Charger and it comes, rearing back a little as it spots the Stormbird's carcass—well, what little of it she's left for scavengers. "Easy," she murmurs as she hops back on and swings her leg over the side. Two light taps and they're away again, bound for any place with a pallet.

The potion's effects won't wear off for at least an hour. They cause an almost-pleasant buzz to travel up and down her arm, with her shoulder wound as its source. The pain has been muted so much that Aloy can easily reach into her pouch and cup her Stormbird trophy in her hands. She had cut out the Machine's heart with Sylens' spear; it fetches a handsome amount when traded, and she might get a fine new bow out of it, but...

 _Maybe not now_.

There's no need to give it away so quickly. Better to keep her prize close, for pride. Perhaps show it off at the hovel. Would it be proper, to lay it out by Rost's grave as an offering? Would he have approved? Would she finally have been seen as a worthy fellow hunter in his eyes?

Aloy doesn't know. It turns out there were a lot of things she never knew about Rost, and she ran out of time to ask.

Victory is bittersweet, because the one person she most wants to share it with can never see it.

_I miss you, Rost._

Newly freed from the storm clouds once circling above, the sun shines especially brightly as it starts sinking in the distant west; this particular bad day is almost over. Non-mechanical animals emerge from burrows and trees, quietly repopulating the space left behind. The Stormbird heart buzzes slow and warm in Aloy's grasp. And for the briefest moment, an unnaturally chilly wind winds through her hair, tickles her neck, and dries the new tears racing down her cheeks.

 _I wish you were here_.


End file.
